Page 84 of Last Letters to Ara
Me: OMW
Lou: You better speed.
• • •
I get out of the car, Lou already waiting for me with two coffees at a table outside, bouncing in her chair. There’s no doubting that she understood the assignment, picking a table far enough away from others that nobody can eavesdrop.
“Okay, spill!!!” she squeals as I approach.
I drag the metal chair from under the table, making a sound that sends another wave of throbbing through my head.
“I don’t even know where to start.” I groan, taking a sip of my coffee to stall and gather my thoughts.
“I’ll help. How about you start with where you just drove from and why you look like death warmed over?”
“I had to pick up my car from a bar in St. Pete.”
Lou doesn’t miss a beat. “Who dropped you off at your car?”
“Theo.”
“Is this a puking trainwreck story, or a hot steamy sex story?”
“Definitely a puking trainwreck.” I try to hide my face with my coffee cup.
Lou pushes it down. “What happened?”
“Back story, but please don’t let this make everything depressing. Yesterday was my dad’s birthday and I didn’t have the best day, as you can probably imagine.” Lou sympathizes, but not an ounce of pity crosses her features. I could kiss her for it.
“Shit, you should’ve called me so you didn’t have to go through that on your own.” Lou means it, too. She’s the type of person who genuinely cares and wears it all over her face.
It shocks me to realize that Icouldhave called her. I could have called Theo, too, before I let myself get to such a bad place. Instead, I tried to face everything on my own, like usual, and wound up in a less than ideal circumstance.
Is this the root of my problems? Not letting people in and therefore trying to face things nobody can face on their own and considering it a failure? “You’ll be my first call next time.”
“Good. Now hurry up and get to the puking part, because I’m praying that your story will be more embarrassing than my own.”
I love her honesty. “No way that yours is worse.”
“Well, spit it out so I can decide.”
“After a whole day of crying, I decided to go to a bar in St. Pete and have a drink, except one drink turned into...I don’t even know how many. Enough that I don’t remember the rest of my night except for little tidbits. Plus, what Theo filled me in on this morning.
“I do know that I got to the bar and ordered some food. The bartender, who I weirdly remember was covered in tattoos and named Ryder, made me a couple drinks. He seemed like an okay person, despite his best efforts. After that, it’s mostly a blank. I remember almost falling once and worrying that Ryder might think I had been pooping...”
A loud, snorting laugh from Lou cuts me off and I grin. Even drunk off my ass, it’s such amething to worry about someone jumping to conclusions about my bowel movements. I laugh with her until she waves me on to continue the story.
“After the pooping thing, Theo shows up at the bar, and I think it’s because I called him. I checked my phone history this morning and it showed that I called him just before midnight and we talked for about two minutes. I remember him holding my hair while I puked my guts out in the parking lot and then the rest of the night went fully black, like I do not remember a single thing.”
“Okay, so he saw you puke in a parking lot? That’s totally recoverable.”
“I haven’t gotten to the worst part.” I will myself to keep going. “This morning, I woke up in my bra and underwear, which were not even remotely sexy, by the way, having absolutely no idea whose bed I was in or how I got there. No slut shaming here, but it freaked me out not being able to rememberanything.”
“Yeah, total date-rape vibes.”
“Exactly! I’m sitting there having a near panic attack when I realize IT’S THEO IN BED WITH ME!”
“Nooooo!!” She gasps, utterly riveted. “And you can’t even remember if it was good? One look at him and you can tell he would be an absolute fiend in the bedroom.”
